For those who spend periods of time sitting in a bed, sofa or other flat surface such as a floor or ground, it is important to provide proper support to the body to avoid discomfort, fatigue and/or body deformation. Ordinary cushions and pillows fail to provide necessary support, which requires a chair-like bed lounge typically with at least a rear portion with two attached arm-rests, one at each side, and preferably a neck support/headrest.
To accommodate the needs of different individuals with regard to size, body shape, weight, age, etc., the bed lounge is preferably provided with several user adjustment capabilities, e.g. relating to tilt-back, arm-rest spacing, lower back support, headrest height and orientation.
Bedding furniture in the field of this invention has been known under such names as “bed bolster”, “husband” and “study rest”. Typically such items have been made entirely from foam, loose-filling or fiber material so that characteristically they lack support, being overly soft and flexible, and/or they are inconveniently heavy.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,423,098 issued to the present inventors, hereby incorporated by reference, disclosed an ergonomic BED LOUNGE made with a fabric cover enclosing foam padding over a main seat assembly formed from air-core plastic sheet material to provide the required strength while keeping the weight lighter than all-foam construction. This original version of the BedLounge® featured a basic form of limited adjustable inclination, a built-in adjustable lower back pillow, a doubly adjustable neck/head pillow and arm-rests have pivoted forward portions with “living hinges” for adjusting separation. Subsequent developments in the BedLounge® product line are disclosed in currently pending U.S. patent application Ser. Nos. 11/240,538 filed Sep. 30, 2005 for DUAL-MODAL-SHAPE BED LOUNGE and 11/473,485 filed Jun. 23, 2006 for BASIC BED LOUNGE.
Many products in this field of endeavor fail to provide adjustable inclination; those that do provide such capability, including the previous three versions of the BedLounge® mentioned above, depend upon external support from a vertical structure such as a wall or the headboard of a bed and thus are not free-standing.
Known mechanisms for adjusting recliners, such as sun cots, hospital beds and the like, tend to be, excessively bulky, costly and/or heavy, impossible or highly inconvenient and difficult for a seated user to release, adjust and reset. Known lounges made of metal and/or electrically powered may pose risk of injury. Many known lounges are not fully adjustable over a continuous range of recline, providing only a limited number of detents or stops and/or inadequate range.
There remains an unfulfilled need for a compact, portable bed lounge that provides a wide continuous range of inclination that can be conveniently and proportionally adjusted by a user while seated in place, and that is free-standing without need for external support.